It's been a long day in the saddle, so hopefully the following makes sense, and doesn't contain too many spellin errors.
To play devil's advocate.... All my fish poop brown in varoius shades. NONE of them eat brown food?!? My plecos eat veggies and green algae wafers, yet their poo is brown. My tilapia eats a huge assortment of items and poops brown. The pacus eat mostly veggies and plant matter, along with a few nuts and fruit bits, yet poop brown. My shellies and guppies eat algae flakes, and poop brown. My carnivorous marine fish all eat meat products such as salmon, scallops and shrimp and they poo.... BROWN. I had never seen a fish poop orange before feeding NLS.
I had trouble getting my pacus to eat it, so I tossed it into the tilapia. He at it! But he's pooping like a man on a mission and its all bright orange.
Have you never seen a pleco excrete waste after cleaning a tank full of algae? I can assure that it's waste will be green, perhaps with a brown tone to it, but it's still dark green.
I can only tell you what I see in my tanks, and it's pretty much what you described above, various shades of brown, but with a slightly orangish tone to it. It's certainly not what I would call "bright orange". I honestly have no idea what took place with your fish, but I wonder if feeding a 'new' food to your tilapia (a herbivore?) with such a high dietary level of protein etc, caused some of the food to actually not be fully assimilated? I have no idea, but I certainly wouldn't be feeding the 10mm NLS pellets to any species of fish that's been classified as a herbivore.
That's like putting rocket fuel into a Kia. lol
As with any new food, one should also always feed very sparingly for several days, which will allow the fish's intestinal flora to adapt to any potential change a new food can sometimes cause.
Are you serious? Right up until you said that, you have been sounding great. The heating processes that make fish meal denature the vitamin profiles horrifically. The only thing left in fish meal is proteins. All other nutritional value must be added in separately. The amino acid profile that results from fish meal depends heavily on the species of fish used to make the fish meal and the process used to manufacture it. To say there is a huge variability in quality is an understatement. And yet all get sold under the same title "fish meal".
Do you actually think that any manufacturer relies on fish (meal or otherwise) to provide the optimum vitamin values in their food? The amino acid profile is all that matters for that portion of the equation, vitamins & other micro-nutrients can easily be made up elsewhere, at much higher (and more optimum) levels. How do you reckon Omega makes their fish food? Those "cooked" proteins become denatured as well, be it pellets that get cooked in the extrusion process, or flakes that get cooked in a drum. Pre-processing, most raw ingredients used in fish foods start out
fresh.
Of course all fish meal is not equal, I've stated just that many many times over the years, including in a post on MFK a few months back:
Not all fish meal is made from processing plant leftovers (waste).
There are many types & grades of fish meal, while some are indeed made from leftover processing plant waste (such as white fish meal) others are comprised of whole fish, such a herring meal. There are low ash fish meals, fish meals with high ash content (excessive scales & bones), low temp fish meals where the vast majority of nutrients are left intact, and even fertilizer grade fish meal. (yes, it's used as fertilizer!)
Not all fish meals are created equally, and the wholesale price will typically determine the overall quality.
Some of the leading experts in the science of fish nutrition believe that there are growth promoting factors found in fish meal that have yet to even be determined by the scientific community. The bottom line is, the biological value of a quality fish meal is quite high.
And no, I'm not RD Miles, but both Miles & Chapman are what most people would consider experts in this field, and their opinions certainly hold a lot more weight than that of your average hobbyist that posts on fish forums.
In the same post quoted above, I also stated the following:
Grains, binders, and low cost fillers.
Some starch/carb content is not an issue in a fishes diet, and in most cases cannot be avoided to some degree. Wheat flour is a very safe binding agent, there only becomes a problem when excessive grains/carbs/starch are utilized in the feed, as most species of fish can only assimilate so much starch. While a carp/koi may be able to utilize as much as 30-40% carbs, most species can only assimilate in the 20% range, with some carnivores falling into the 10% max range.
When feeding low cost generic foods with excessive grain content, not only does much of what goes in, come right back out the other end, if too much is consumed at once these types of feeds can also cause gastrointestinal issues in some species, such as those that are prone to float and/or bloat.
(eg. fancy goldfish, Tropheus moorii)
Also, there is a BIG difference between terrestrial based plant matter (such as soybeans, peas, etc) and plant matter from aquatic sources, such as seaweed, kelp, spirulina, and various micro-algaes. The former contain known anti-nutritional factors, which can inhibit growth, and cause other health issues if used in excess, or if not processed properly. (such as at low temps)
So on that note we are in complete agreement.
I think we all agree to this. The very question being presented here is which food might have a better quality to it. Feeds that finish manufacturing with sufficient ascobic acid in them typically start manufacturing with an excess of 500mg/kg. Different ascorbic acid isomers react differently to different manufacturing methods. I don't think any commercial feed makers would present their post manufacturing ascorbic acid quantities when they can get away with publishing the premanufacturing levels. The isomers that are heat stable cost more than 3x what the heat labile ones cost. If natural ascorbic acid levels exist in the ingredients making the need to add them during manufacturing unnessary, the post manufacture levels are actually going to be much higher than those artificially added. Whole fish and whole algal products do contain natural levels of ascorbic acid. Not true of "meals".
Certainly, ascorbic acid in fish food can originate from the raw ingredients, as well as from vitamin premixes. Having said that, I don't know of a single large scale commercial fish food manufacturer that relies solely on their raw ingredients for their micro-nutrient levels, such as vitamin c. (including Omega One) If they do, then IMO those post processing levels would be seriously lacking in some areas.
If natural ascorbic acid levels exist in the ingredients making the need to add them during manufacturing unnessary, the post manufacture levels are actually going to be much higher than those artificially added.
I'm afraid that you lost me on that one? The end results will depend on a number of factors, including what each manufacturer considers optimum, or in many cases,
adequate levels of each micro-nutrient. Manufacturer ABC might consider 100 mg/kg of ascorbic acid to be "more than adequate" for their feed, and adds no additional ascorbic acid beyond what is found in their non-meal raw ingredients.
Manufacturer XYZ may have 500 mg/kg of ascorbic acid derived from their various raw ingredients, yet still adds an additional 500 mg/kg of L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate, the stable form of vitamin c that is currently used by many manufacturers.
In the latter formula, the fact that there is ascorbic acid derived from their source of protein, or not, becomes a non issue, and in fact contains what I would personally consider to be a much more optimum level of ascorbic acid vs the formula that relied solely on their non-meal raw ingredients.
With regards to
the argument about how many ingredients were in any one food.
That was in reference to the list you posted for Omega. (the marketing genius)
Imagine if this was the ingredient list .....
INGREDIENTS: Whole Herring, Wheat Flour, Wheat Gluten, Fresh Kelp, Lecithin, Astaxanthin, L-Ascorbyl-2-Phosphate (Source of Vitamin C), Natural and Artificial Colors, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Folic Acid, Biotin, Inositol, Tocopherol (Preservative), Ethoxyquin (Preservative).
Suddenly it doesn't look so impressive, does it?
Which is why I previously stated ............ Also, when formulating a feed, it doesn't matter how long the list of fish ingredients are on a label, the total is still the total, whether ones uses 500lb's of herring, 500 lb's of cod, or 500 lb's of 10 different species of fish.
What impresses most people about Omega is that looooong list of "Fresh Fish from Alaska" .... when in reality unless you know the actual inclusion rates of each raw ingredient listed, you really don't know what's going on behind the scenes. In fact, if one combined the Wheat flour & Wheat gluten, it's quite possible that "wheat" could become the second ingredient listed by weight.
See how that works? I'm not saying that this is the case with Omega products (my legal disclaimer) but what's commonly referred to as ingredient splitting, most certainly does take place within the industry.
As an example take a close look at the following ingredient list on one of the more well known wafers on the market, marketed as so called
Premium Algae Discs.
Here's what's listed by weight (in descending order) on the ingredients list;
Spirulina Algae Meal, Corn Gluten Feed, Corn Meal, Corn Distilled Dried Grains, Wheat Flour, Wheat Germ, Wheat Gluten, Wheat Middlings, Linseed Meal, Canola Meal, Dehulled Soybean Meal, Soy Protein Concentrate, Pea Protein, Brewer's Dried Yeast, Corn Flour, Rice Flour, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Soy Protein Isolate, Ground Barley, Calcium Carbonate, Soybean Meal, etc .........
I suspect that if one was to clump together the various grains as a single listing, it would read more like this;
Corn, Wheat, Spirulina, Vegetable Oil ........ with this food containing FAR more grain & grain by-products (corn & wheat), than anything else.
I wonder how well this product would sell if they had marketed it as
Premium Corn Discs?
As much as it pains me to admit it, there are a lot of smoke & mirrors & marketing games that take place within this industry, and the rules & regs regarding fish food labels are rather loosey goosey.
